Psychology students Arielle Cenin and Nicole McKay recently attended the Midwestern Psychological Association Conference 2013 in Chicago, IL to present their research, blogging about their experience along the way.

May 3. This is our last day at the conference, and today we are free to walk through poster sessions, sit in lectures of our choosing, and attend roundtable discussions. We learned a lot today, and really enjoyed meeting new people and networking. It was an awesome experience to speak to others who are interested about our research, as well as learn what our peers around the country are researching also. We saw posters on topics ranging from Autism and the basal ganglia to texting while driving, along with many diverse others. It was so nice to meet so many people in one place who share the same passion for psychology; definitely a sense of belonging! We even got to see Elizabeth Loftus in person… her work is groundbreaking! It was crazy to be able to see her lecture in person after learning about her in class. We absolutely enjoyed our trip and will remember it always. We genuinely enjoyed interacting with our academic peers and hope to come back again next year!

May 2. This is the day we present our poster and accept our award from Psi Chi!: Waiting for our names to be called to receive the award, inflicted reflection upon how far we have come and the amount of work we have put into our research. It is amazing to have this opportunity-not only to have the professors and programs to teach us how to do quality research, but the freedom to design our own experiment within our own interests, and then to share it and be recognized in a professional setting; amazing experience.

May 1. Just landed in Chicago! The Palmer House is absolutely gorgeous; we are so excited to have this 19th century home for the next few days. Painted ceilings and gold leaf trimming-staying here makes life feel like a movie! Chicago is such a beautiful city, and the weather is wonderful so we headed out to go sight-seeing. We saw “the bean”, Millennium Park, the fountains with faces, as well as the Chicago Riverwalk. Headed to dinner now, maybe we will get a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza…

Ursuline Psychology takes you places. Research plays an important role within the field of psychology, and our department has done a wonderful job at providing exciting opportunities such as this to students who wish to pursue a career in psychology. The goal of the Midwestern Psychological Association is to promote the advancement of psychological science. This is done through holding an annual meeting at which papers, posters, and symposia research are presented.

There are over 2000 members of MPA, which makes it one of the largest psychological associations in the world. Members hold positions in universities, colleges, hospitals, clinics, school systems, business and industry, government and private practice. They teach, conduct research in laboratories, do diagnosis, therapy, and counseling, and serve as administrators and consultants. Through attending this conference, we have had the opportunity to network with fellow psychology majors, professors from other intuitions, and attend lectures of some of the leading researchers in their field.

Psi Chi, an international honors society in psychology, is also an important part of our path towards a career in psychology, and its goal is also to promote and encourage research from undergraduate and graduate students. Becoming member of Psi Chi has given us the opportunity to win an award for our submission to the MPA conference. Of the 400 plus research projects that were presented this year, only 18, including ours, won an award in excellence from Psi Chi. This is a wonderful achievement for us, and shows the wonderful opportunities available when students join Psi Chi and attend conferences such as MPA. We could not have accomplished all of this without the help of our faculty advisors, Dr. Edmonds and Dr. Frazier, so for this, we thank you!